


The Way The Story Goes

by MajorWolfe



Category: Holby City
Genre: Drowning, F/F, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Major Character Death X 2, Overdose, Sudden Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-03-22 07:24:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13759155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MajorWolfe/pseuds/MajorWolfe
Summary: Not every love story ends with a couple living happily ever after.Please read the tags before reading the story.





	The Way The Story Goes

**Author's Note:**

> As a lot of you know, I've been struggling with my mental health recently, so I've not really been writing much, but my head just wouldn't let this idea go, and once it was written it just kept screaming at me to post it, so here it is.
> 
> If you haven't all ready done so, please, please read the tags before reading any further, I'd hate to think that I'd upset or hurt any of you with this!

Two years, four months and sixteen days. She could even tell you the hours and the minutes if you asked. Two years, four months and sixteen days since her daughter had died. Two years, four months and sixteen days since Serena had felt her heart be torn from her chest and stamped on. Two years, four months and sixteen days since the world had fallen apart around her. Two years, four months and sixteen days of trying to hold herself together, of learning to deal with the gaping chasm in her heart, of learning to live her life knowing that her beautiful baby, the girl that had so much in front of her, would never get to live her own. 

Four hours and twenty seven minutes. That's how long it had been since the life Serena had managed to build since Elinor's death had been shattered irreparably. Four hours and twenty seven minutes since a God that so obviously hated her, dealt the blow that Serena knew she wouldn't be coming back from. Four hours and twenty seven minutes since Serena Campbell-Wolfe had watched her wife die on the floor of an operating theatre. Two hours and fifty eight minutes since Jac Naylor had knocked solemnly on the door of the consultants office on AAU, no words needed as the look on her face told the occupants that their worst fears had come true. 

Their day started like any other. Bernie's alarm sounded at some ungodly hour so she could go out for a run, only for the blonde to find Serena's warm body wrapped around her, trying to convince her to stay and ‘snuggle’ “you know you want to” Serena purred sleepily in Bernie's ear. She was right, Bernie could hear the rain pounding against the bedroom window and an hour in bed with her wife sounded much more appealing than a jog around the park. “I'm sure that, between us, we can make sure you still get some exercise” she'd whispered before quickly moving to straddle Bernie’s hips, the blonde gasping at the contact of skin on skin, neither of them bothering with pyjamas the night before. 

Almost two hours later and they were ready for work, both with big smiles on their faces and rosy cheeks as they made their way to work, not even the awful weather being able to dampen their mood. They spent the morning working separately before snagging twenty minutes together to eat lunch together in the privacy of their office, Bernie pecking Serena's cheek and suggesting their favourite restaurant for dinner as she left the office after Donna asked her to check on a patient, and it wasn't until their last job of the day that they found themselves working together in theatre. Gentle teasing and lingering looks as they worked perfectly in tandem together, each knowing what the other needed before they even asked, they were a perfect team. Were.

Serena felt sick just thinking about it, she'd noticed Bernie had stopped what she was doing, looked up to see Bernie's face grey, her eyes unfocused, she'd got no response when she'd asked Bernie if she was okay and ordered a theatre nurse to get a glass of water and a chair, but instead the nurse ended up catching Bernie as she collapsed. 

Serena had tried to stay calm, tried to stay focused on her patient as the nurse announced Bernie wasn't breathing, despite the fact that she could almost feel the ground crumbling beneath her. She screamed for someone to page Sacha, watching helplessly as the nurse began CPR on Bernie's lifeless body, rolling her eyes to the ceiling and silently mumbling a prayer to anyone who was listening _‘please not Bernie. I’ll forgive you for taking Elinor but please don’t take Bernie too._ ’

It felt like hours before Sacha came into theatre, gowned and scrubbed in, “where are you at?” he asked Serena, disturbing her from her thoughts and making her wonder how she’d managed to continue the procedure whilst her mind was firmly focused on Bernie. 

“No” she manages to stutter, “not me, Bernie, she, she…” 

“She's in good hands Serena” Sacha could see the fear on Serena's face, knew how worried she was, tried to hide his own worry for the woman laid out on the theatre floor. 

“She, she…” Serena glanced back over at Bernie, only then realising that both Jac and Dom were now knelt on the floor along with the scrub nurse, Serena hadn't noticed them come in, hadn't noticed Jac shouting orders, barely registering a trolley being brought in and Bernie's lifeless body being lifted onto it, Jac straddling her hips in much the same way Serena had that morning, only instead of trying to kill her with pleasure, Jac's sole intention was to save Bernie’s life. 

Once she'd handed over to Sacha, Serena scrubbed out and made her way back to the office, picking up Bernie's scarf from where she'd dumped it that morning, burying her face in the soft fabric and inhaling the scent of the woman she loved, the woman that, deep down, she already knew she wouldn't be seeing again. 

Jac fought, did all she could, tried to resuscitate Bernie for far longer than she would have attempted with any other patient. Her efforts only halted when Hanssen appeared, and, after finding out just how long Jac had spent battling to save Bernie's live, had nodded, before solemnly telling her, “I think you've done all you can Ms Naylor, it would seem to me that it's time to admit defeat.” 

Henrik offered to break the news to Serena but Jac insisted on doing it herself. Knocking on the office door once, stepping in without waiting for an answer. She didn't need to say anything, the look of defeat on her face confirmed Serena's fears, and she simply picked up her handbag and mumbled thanks to Jac as she left the office before Jac had time to give her rehearsed speech, that Bernie had never regained consciousness, that she wouldn't have been in any pain. 

Serena ignored the calls of her name from both Jac and Sacha, the latter having come to sit with her once he’d finished in theatre, as she raced down the stairs, not wanting to wait for the lift. She'd known, almost as soon as Bernie had hit the floor there'd been a part of her that knew she wasn't coming back, and it was then that she came up with a plan, a plan that she knew now, was her only option. 

She'd managed to hang on after Elinor died, managed to keep putting one foot in front of the other, but Serena knew that was only because of Bernie, Bernie had been her rock, her constant, the only thing keeping her grounded when everything else was shattering around her, Bernie had reminded her to shower, to eat, to sleep, reminded her to breathe. Bernie had sat with her, held Serena together when all she wanted to do was fall apart. But now Bernie was gone, Elinor was gone, and soon, soon she'd be gone too.

She'd thought briefly of Jason, but he had his own life now, he'd moved in with Alan during Serena's darkest days and never returned, instead getting his own place, a small flat at the other side of Holby that he shared with his girlfriend and, apart from a scheduled 20 minute phone call every week and dinner one evening a month they barely spoke to each other, she was sure that, although it would be hard at first, he’d soon adjust. 

It was relatively easy in the end, a packet of over the counter sleeping pills from boots on the high street and a bottle of Bernie’s favourite whiskey from the tesco express at the end of the road, that was all she needed. 

Serena could feel a familiar numbness starting to creep over herself as she let herself into her house. The silence almost deafening as she kicked off her shoes, taking the whiskey and the sleeping pills upstairs. She undressed herself, hands shaking as she pulled on the shirt Bernie wore yesterday before padding into the bathroom, putting the plug in the bath and turning on the taps. She knew the sleeping tablets she'd bought wouldn't be enough to end her life, but she didn't have the time or the energy to wait for a prescription for anything stronger to be delivered from the hospital pharmacy so she'd gone for her plan b. The pills she'd bought, washed down with the whiskey should be enough to knock her out for a while, knock her out long enough for to stop her fighting as she slipped under the water, long enough to take her from the hell she was living, long enough. 

She sat on Bernie's side of the bed as she swallowed the pills, her eyes landing on one of their wedding pictures, framed on Bernie's bedside table as she reached for the whiskey. Bernie had never been sentimental, but as soon as she'd seen the photo, a candid one Cameron had taken, the two of them stood, hand in hand, foreheads resting together as the sun set behind them, she'd announced she wanted a copy, a copy that had lived on her bedside table ever since, a similar photo making its way onto Bernie’s desk. 

Serena carried the photo frame and the bottle into the bathroom, already beginning to feel drowsy as she sank down into the warm water, hotter than she usually liked but that hardly seemed to matter anymore. She laid back in the water, a single tear rolling down her cheek as she raised the bottle to her lips, taking another gulp of the bitter liquid before brushing her lips against the glass of the photo frame, her lipstick smudging over the image of Bernie's face, “I love you” she whispered as darkness began creeping into the sides of her vision.

It had been four hours and twenty seven minutes since Bernie had been taken from Serena’s life, four hours and twenty seven minutes that had dragged by like years, four hours and twenty seven minutes without Bernie, and that was more than enough. Serena smiled happily, kissing the photo again as she closed her eyes, “I love you and I'll see you soon.”  


End file.
